Girl sent to psych ward for homeschooling, parents billed

The parents of Melissa Busekros, the German teen who was taken by police from her home and placed in a psychiatric ward because she was homeschooled, now are being billed by the government for the cost of her forced stay, according to attorneys who are working on her case.

"The relevant Youth Welfare Office is hereby instructed and authorized to bring the child, if necessary by force, to a hearing and may obtain police support for this purpose."

She eventually was detained for several months, until she turned 16 and was subject to different German laws, when she simply left the custodial foster family where she had been ordered to stay and returned to her parents, Hubert and Gudrun Busekros, and her five siblings.

Court officials later said they would not challenge her actions, but the underlying court case stemming from allegations from education and social service officials over the teen's welfare has remained unresolved.

There, legal counsel Roger Kiska told WND that the case is being attacked on two fronts, a direct challenge to the legal rulings in the case at the Court of Human Rights, and a political attack in the European Parliament, which cannot change Germany's homeschooling laws but can apply pressure to make the government more tolerant.

Meanwhile, the local government involved in the case is demanding payment from the Busekros family of an undetermined bill for Melissa's stay from February through April 2007 when she was in the custody of authorities and social services in Germany.

The family, after paying for its own legal counsel throughout much of the battle with government officials, has no resources left to pay the fees, which could reach an amount equal to thousands of dollars, and Kiska said they are simply another aggravating factor in the case.

The Busekros family

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The appeals process will be long and complicated, but the ECLJ hopes it will result in a more appropriate response on the part of German officials to those who seek to homeschool.

Kiska said the goal is that children no longer would be taken into custody by SWAT teams.

"The measures used by the government in this case reached extreme measures," he said. "There were several police cars sent early in the morning like a SWAT team. We're challenging that in Europe these types of things cannot happen."

He said if such procedures are limited, the "teeth" will be gone from some of the rules being enforced by various local government officials now, and that ultimately will expand the education rights of children.

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"What is being done to a sensitive and musical young girl, just because the bureaucrats want to set an example? In their zealous drive to enforce compulsory schooling (which by Melissa's age is only part-time) at all costs, they readily accept the trauma caused to the unassuming and lovable Melissa," said a German homeschool advocacy organization at the time she was taken into custody.

"The Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit condemns this inconsiderate and totally incommensurate behavior on the part of the officials involved and demands that they give Melissa her freedom and return her to her family immediately," the group, an alliance of individuals, organizations and parent initiatives lobbying to achieve educational freedom in Germany, said.

Melissa had been getting home tutoring in math and other subjects to aid in her schoolwork after school officials warned she needed to catch up. However, those officials were unhappy with the arrangement and expelled her, forcing the family into a homeschooling situation.

The German Youth Welfare Office then created a case in Family Court which eventually resulted in the court order to remove Melissa from her home.

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She remained in custody in various locations from that point until her April 2007 birthday, when she turned 16 and fell under different laws.

The whole issue over her "mental well-being" still remains to be resolved, Kiska said, although educational officials not longer have jurisdiction over her education.

In this case, Germany is the odd one out of the European Union because of its attitude toward homeschooling. Only Slovakia has such similar restrictions.

Ultimately, "we're hoping for a more uniform approach" to homeschooling in Germany, he said. "There are some areas that are far more conducive to homeschoolers."

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The petition being presented to the European Parliament will be by the family, and will seek a more tolerant treatment of those whose unique school needs don't fit exactly into the format of a government institution. It could be heard as early as this year. The family will appear before the parliamentary committee and the teen will tell her story, he said.

The court case will challenge the various rulings regarding her mental well-being, but that is a slower process, and probably will not result in a verdict for several years.

In the meantime, the family is refusing to pay the charges for Melissa's custody.

"We're handling the case pro bono," Kiska said of his organization. "But their legal expenses (before this point) have been extraordinary. They're suffering. They cannot afford to pay these bills."

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The ECLJ was founded about a decade ago by Jay Sekulow and Thomas Patrick Monagham of the American Center for Law and Justice, which set up its European counterpart as a nonprofit dedicated to the protection and defense of religious freedom in Europe.

It has its headquarters in Strasbourg, France, from which it seeks to enforce religious freedoms guaranteed under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

"It feels like persecution," Klaus Landahl told The Observer in London after he fled Germany with his family to the United Kingdom. "We had to get to safety to protect our family."

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WND reported when the Landahl family fled to England because the mayor in their town, Altensteig, which has a sister-city promotional relationship with Butte, Mont., launched a court action aimed at giving custody of their children to the state over homeschooling issues.

The Observer also reported on another case, that of Jonathan Skeet, who fled Ludenscheid with his wife and five children after authorities froze their bank account, took money from it, and confiscated their vehicle.

The family also chose the Isle of Wight to relocate because of its large home education network. The persecution, he said, was intolerable.

"It was crippling," he told The Observer. "When we lived in Germany we wanted to live a very inconspicuous and quiet life. But instead we ended up in direct confrontation with a very powerful state."

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Another family also has confirmed plans to leave Germany because of the harassment they been subjected to as homeschoolers, according to the U.S.-based Home School Legal Defense Association.

Dagmar and Tilman Neubronner also have fallen victim to government persecution, officials said.

The HSLDA said such a policy "is in stark contrast to all other democratic and free societies that embrace homeschooling and recognize that parents have the primary responsibility and inalienable right to direct the upbringing and education of their children."

The Neubronner family was facing continuing threats from the "federal minister of education" to impose penalties adding up to $10,000, plus "further coercives." The government already had searched the home for items that could be sold to pay the penalties, and had shut down the family's access to bank accounts.

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"Only jail and loss of custody are left" as potential penalties, their lawyer concluded.

Government officials repeatedly have expressed a determination to stamp out "parallel societies" and that includes homeschooling.

"Even the United Nations has called on Germany to reform the way it treats homeschoolers. We appeal to the German people and German leadership to do what is right and to protect rather than attack families who choose to homeschool their children," the HSDLA has noted.

Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for the Federal Republic of Germany, has commented on the issue on a blog, noting the government "has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views and in integrating minorities into the population as a whole."

Drautz said homeschool students' test results may be as good as for those in school, but "school teaches not only knowledge but also social conduct, encourages dialogue among people of different beliefs and cultures, and helps students to become responsible citizens."

The German government's defense of its "social" teachings and mandatory public school attendance was clarified during an earlier dispute on which WND reported, when a German family wrote to officials objecting to police officers picking their child up at home and delivering him to a public school.

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"The minister of education does not share your attitudes toward so-called homeschooling," said a government letter in response. "... You complain about the forced school escort of primary school children by the responsible local police officers. ... In order to avoid this in future, the education authority is in conversation with the affected family in order to look for possibilities to bring the religious convictions of the family into line with the unalterable school attendance requirement."

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.